BOISE, ID – In a letter dated Dec. 16, the Twin Falls Historic Preservation Commission got some welcome news.

Its application for a $25,000 grant through the state’s America250 in Idaho program – the initiative to celebrate the United States’ upcoming 250th birthday and Idaho’s historical role in the founding and expansion of our country  – was selected for funding.

“We are grateful for your partnership in advancing the ideals of the American Revolution – equality, liberty, and justice – through meaningful community engagement and recognizing, appreciating, and commemorating Idaho’s journey in America’s legacy,” said the Dec. 16 letter, signed by Idaho State Historical Society Executive Director Janet Gallimore and Idaho State Historical Society Board of Trustees Chairwoman Cheryl O’Brien.

The grant was sorely needed, said historic preservation commission member Ronald James, to help with a project that aims to tell the underrepresented story of Chinese immigrants in southern Idaho and their impact on the state’s mining history. The grant would help complete the last phase of an “ambitious multi-phase archaeological survey of Chinese gold mining sites in the Snake River Canyon near Twin Falls, Idaho, and help finalize the establishment of a National Register Snake River Canyon Historic Mining District,” according to the Twin Falls Historic Preservation Commission’s grant application shared with the Idaho Capital Sun.

But on March 24, the preservation commission received another letter, this time from state Rep. Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow, and state Sen. Ben Adams, R-Nampa, the two chairmen of the advisory council overseeing the America250 efforts in Idaho.

“After reviewing the Idaho State Historical Society’s America250 in Idaho Grant program, we met with Director Gallimore to discuss how these grants comport with the Advisory Council’s vision for America250 in Idaho,” the letter stated. “After careful consideration of legislative intent, the grant program through America250 is cancelled. … We appreciate your organization’s role in preserving and sharing Idaho’s story, providing information and understanding that educates and inspires. We trust that Director Gallimore will continue to find ways to support the outstanding work you do.”

The March 24 letter citing legislative intent as the reason for cancelling the grants exposed some of the disagreements that have been brewing within the advisory council, the Idaho State Historical Society and the Idaho legislators who allocated the taxpayer dollars to be spent for the 250th celebration.

James, who said he had worked on the 11-page grant application for hours, was stunned.

“It feels like you just have the rug pulled out from under you,” James said in a telephone interview. “In a way it’s like a betrayal, because first off, we were encouraged to seek these grants and to pursue this. This project I’ve been working on for the last seven or eight years, and then right when you’re right in the middle of doing what you’re supposed to do, and you’re having success within your craft, they turn around and say they just don’t know. They say, ‘Sorry, we don’t want this anymore.’”

But it wasn’t just the Twin Falls Historic Preservation Commission that received the letter.

Of the 48 applications that were submitted for the grants, 31 organizations received a letter saying their grants were selected for a financial award in December. The grants selected ranged from $4,500-$25,000, Gallimore told the Capital Sun in an email. In the council’s Dec. 18 meeting, she said the 31 selectees represented $600,000 worth of total grant funding.

Now, all but two of the 31 grants have been cancelled. And the Idaho nonprofit organizations that were counting on the money they say was already promised to them are left wondering why.

America250 in Idaho Advisory Council wants more oversight of grant funding

Benjamin Burdick, the producing artistic director at Boise Contemporary Theater, said his organization is among the grant selectees that had already made plans for a $25,000 grant in its budget. The money was going to be used to refurbish the theater, which is located in a historic seed house built in downtown Boise in 1935.

After receiving the Dec. 16 selection letter, Burdick said the theater received another update on Feb. 5 informing his organization that the grant’s distribution was on hold while the program was being reviewed “for compliance with legislative intent” with instructions to not spend the $25,000 before the grant could be reviewed.

“When we plan, we make plans based on what people tell us,” Burdick said in a phone interview. “So if we think we have $25,000 coming, then we start to plan around that. But to then get a letter out of the blue that says, ‘sorry, you’re not getting that $25,000,’ … Now we’re just in crisis management mode, instead of doing what we do best, which is tell stories.”

In an email to the Capital Sun, Gallimore said that while the grant recipients had been selected in December, they had not yet been contracted. In March, the Idaho Legislature passed House Bill 357, which gives control over the America250 funding to the advisory council through a new account overseen by the State Treasurer’s Office, and it was signed by Idaho Gov. Brad Little on April 2.

“Any future use of America250 funds will be at the discretion of the Advisory Council,” Gallimore said in the email to the Sun. “As an executive branch agency, the role of ISHS is to implement the budget and policy decisions adopted by the Legislature.”

The council is made up of the state constitutional officers, state legislators, a private business representative and Gallimore.

Advisory council co-chair says grant money should be ‘hyper-focused on celebrating America’s 250th birthday’

An Idaho Capital Sun review of the Idaho advisory council’s four public meetings held throughout December, January and February shed some light on differences between members of the America205 in Idaho Advisory Council, and leadership of the Idaho State Historical Society. Adams said House Concurrent Resolution 31, which the Idaho Legislature passed almost unanimously in 2024, laid out the Idaho Legislature’s intention for the money for the celebration. 

“We wanted to be hyper-focused on celebrating America’s 250th birthday,” Adams said in an interview Thursday at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise.

When the America250 in Idaho Advisory Council began meeting in December, Adams said there wasn’t any real oversight of the money for the grants. Adams said he wanted to ensure there was a clear, bright line connecting what the grant money would be used for and the America250 celebration and the founding of America.

Adams said the council  decided to pull all of the grants, which he described as preliminary selections, back for review to ensure the grant applications aligned with legislators’ intentions.

“It was all because the list of grants was pretty large and so the intent was we needed to pull back to make sure the funds go where we intended them to go,” Adams said.

“Not all grants fit with the intent of HCR 31,” Adams said.

Adams said two of the grant recipients – Boise State University and Idaho Public Television – have already spent their funds.

As of Thursday, Adams said all other grants have been paused and are under review to ensure compliance. Adams said the advisory council will reconvene at a future date to decide how to spend the money, and he expects there will be some disagreement among advisory council members about how to proceed.

“That is something we want to work through,” Adams said. But for Adams, his priority is to spend the money on one heck of a birthday party for America.

“You only turn 250 once,” Adams said.

America250 in Idaho Advisory Council, legislators, historical society have differing vision for grant funds

During the advisory council’s Jan. 17 meeting, Gallimore defended the process to establish the criteria for selecting the grants and pointed to language in House Concurrent Resolution 31, which both supports the America250 initiative and the nation’s birthday celebration and also highlights the need to celebrate Idaho’s history and its role in the founding of the U.S.

“In the proclamation and the resolution that you’re referring to, there’s a lot of language about, of course, our American founding values and liberty, equality, justice — all those things,” Gallimore said, “but there’s also woven through there Idaho’s role, our narrative and Idaho’s place in that story, because we’ve contributed heavily to that story.”

Like the celebrations held in 1976 for America’s 200th birthday, which lead to legacy projects in Idaho such as the state highway historic markers project and the state’s Century Farm and Ranch program, the grants could support efforts that can last and make a historical impact over time, she said.

She said the historical society went through a robust, year-long process leading up to the opening of the grants in fall of 2024, which included gathering input from other state agencies like the state’s library and arts commissions on how they allocate grant funding. During an advisory council meeting, she said she met with about 20 legislators to gather input on how the grant funds should be spent and held more than 20 listening sessions, community meetings and town halls across the state to answer questions from potential awardees and to gather information on how best the grants might make an impact for them. She said in the public meetings that the historical society also extended the deadline for grant applicants to offer more time for residents to hear about the program and submit potential projects.

“We asked and did focus groups across the state with our potential awardees from (organizations like) county museums: What would be transformational? What would they need? How could they do this work? So this was very well thought through,” she said during the Jan. 17 meeting.

She said during the council’s Dec. 18 meeting that some legislators, such as Rep. Rick Cheatum, R-Pocatello, did give feedback that they didn’t want the grants to go toward projects like deferred maintenance.

“He said he would be really interested in making sure that the grants didn’t include things like maintenance, because he wanted the grants to go for stories and for deliverables, and so we took that into account when we did the grant guidelines,” Gallimore said at the Dec. 18 meeting.

She said the grant application asked how projects would incorporate the USA’s founding ideals like liberty, justice and equality, and “marrying that with the history of Idaho,” including projects that focused on nature and public lands, agriculture, arts, culture and heritage.

Grants could be looked at as ‘pork in government,’ Idaho state treasurer says

Idaho State Treasurer Julie Ellsworth, a member of the advisory council, said during the council’s Jan. 17 meeting that she has fielded “earfuls” of calls from many concerned legislators that the grant funding was not awarded in line with the Legislature’s intent. She made a motion during that meeting to ask Gallimore to establish a forum where legislators could offer feedback and be heard about the concerns they had with how the grants were selected.

“We’ve worked hand-in-hand with the governor’s office to create those grant guidelines, and the grant guidelines were approved,” Gallimore responded. “I realize there may be a change now, but that was done in the fall, and we’re certainly happy to work with the governor’s office to have him and his staff review them.”

Ellsworth reiterated that she and other elected officials felt some of the selectees fell outside of the vision of the America250 initiative.

“Today I would not be comfortable approving these grants,” Ellsworth said in the public meeting. “You know, truthfully, I feel like that. Perhaps some people would look at it as like pork in government. You know, that’s the first blush you get when you read these things.”

Secretary of State Phil McGrane, who also serves on the council, echoed Ellsworth’s comments in the meeting. He said some of the projects, like funding a new wooden awning for the historic Mason Hall requested by the Lincoln County Historical Society, didn’t fit with legislative intent to celebrate the nation’s founding.

McGrane said that he could fully appreciate why historical sites may need repair, but “the nexus between the roof and America250 is strained.”

“So I use that as an example of the type of feedback that we are collectively receiving and of what I’ve been asking for at times. Like, where’s the balloons? Instead, there’s a roof. … Is it going to be a patriotic-looking roof? That’s, I think, the fundamental question.”

But another member of the advisory council, Sen. Jim Guthrie, R-McCammon, said the projects should have a real, lasting impact on the state and how to continually tell its story.

“If the roof thing, for example, is something that helps sustain a piece of history, that’s important and ties into the greater picture,” Guthrie said. “That has more value to me than a parade, because it has sustaining value.”

In an interview at the Capitol on Thursday, Adams said he took into consideration the concerns discussed at the public meetings, and following Ellsworth’s motion, he said he and Mitchell and met with Gallimore and decided to introduce House Bill 357 and send the letters that the grant funding had been cancelled.

However, the council did not vote on or discuss cancelling the grants at its public meetings. In its Jan. 27 meeting, Adams said the council needed an additional week to review the grant applications that were selected in December. The council canceled its meetings on Feb. 10 and Feb. 14, according to the council’s meeting agendas. The grants were not discussed in the council’s most recent meeting on Feb. 17.

Grant selectees said they followed application guidelines to tell Idaho’s story

James with the Twin Falls County Historical Commission and Burdick with Boise Contemporary Theater said their organizations carefully followed the grant’s application guidelines, which are 11 pages long. They said they followed the application’s stated vision “to celebrate American history and the invaluable contributions of Idahoans to our region, nation, and world.”

“The ongoing process of the growth of the American nation, that’s what I was operating on, and that’s exactly what my project is,” James said. “It’s commemorating the role of these immigrant workers who first helped build the Transcontinental Railroad, and then some of them came up here and made significant contributions to southern Idaho’s frontier communities.”

When James reached out to Adams and Mitchell via email to ask for more of an explanation into their decision to cancel the grants, Mitchell responded to say the chairmen concluded that the grants did not fully meet the intended objectives of the Legislature.

“It’s important to note that when taxpayer funds are allocated, the legislature, representing the voice of the people, must carefully scrutinize how they are being spent,” Mitchell wrote in an April 3 email to James. “It is also important to recognize that no contracts were issued or signed. I understand the frustrations this decision may have caused, and I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience it may have brought. The grant applications we reviewed simply did not align with the vision we all share for celebrating America250.”

Because the Boise Contemporary Theater is in a historic building, Burdick said the grant helps fulfill that America250 vision by offering a world-class gathering place to celebrate arts and culture and provide a space educational programs for children and adults alike to learn more about theater, and by extension, the nation’s history and its past, present and future role in the world.

“The outside noise makes it difficult to keep in mind that at the heart of what we do, it’s very simple,” he said. “We move people. We start conversations. We bring strangers together. We bring friends together. We tell stories. In our education program, we’re not out to create actors or writers or directors, necessarily. At the heart of our theater lab is the desire to create collaborative citizens of the world.”

This story first appeared on Idaho Capital Sun.